They titled Episode 10 “A Tender Farewell”. Maybe I was too busy rolling my eyes, but I totally missed the tender part. Infuriating, yes. But tender is not the word I would choose.

Writer got your tongue?

This episode bugged me so bad! And not because the angst has finally arrived. It irked me because it made absolutely no sense. Yoo Mi stares at Jin Wook, with her broken heart in her eyes, and asks if he did everything because he thought Dong Goo was their son. And what does our forthright, let’s-talk-about-everything hero say? Nothing. Zip. Zilch. As if it were actually true. Did he suddenly forget that he romanced Yoo Mi for 8 episodes before he even found out about his supposed son? The whole set-up felt manufactured and untrue to his character. I blame the writers. It feels like they checked off their story shopping list, realized they forgot to buy the required breakup motivation, and bought some cheap, knockoff scenario at the kdrama convenience store.

(Since the entire episode was basically a wash, I thought I would focus on meaningless, little details for the rest of the recap.)

Most uncomfortable looking doorman, ever

One of the few things to make me laugh in the episode was the extra playing the doorman. He looked so out of place that it seemed like there was more to the story. Picture this. A former Korean boxer is injured in the prize fight of his career and is forced to bow to strangers for a living. His life means nothing. Until the day he sees a beautiful woman walk through the door with eyes even more empty than his own. He watches her pause almost imperceptibly at the sight of their handsome CEO and realizes that this is the woman everyone is talking about. Anger burns in him at the unfair hand that life has dealt to both of them. The rage in his stomach overtakes him. He launches himself at Cha Jin Wook and plants a left hook right on his aristocratic nose. What am I rattling on about, you wonder? It’s no weirder than what really happened in this episode, is it? Besides Jin Wook needs someone to knock some sense into him.

How old are you?

Joo Hye Ri got way too much time in this episode. But I guess the angst hour is always when the second lead makes her move. Did you notice how they never showed her designated driver after her hateful conversation with Yoo Mi? We just heard his voice. I thought for sure they would reveal it was Hyun Tae, once again forced to be her errand boy. They never did reveal his face, so this may remain an unsolved mystery. Just like whether Yoo Mi really kissed Jin Wook in the hospital. But do women in Korea really throw themselves on the ground and wail like that? It happens a lot in dramas, and not just to the bad girls. Heroines are guilty, too. Is this kind of toddler behavior really a normal reaction to them?

Flashbacks – How do they love thee?

Truth be told, I don’t have much to say about the episode. Maybe it’s because so much time was spent on flashbacks. Think about it.

1. In the first scene at the cafe, Yoo Mi remembers Jin Wook telling her she was never easy. Now THAT was a good conversation.
2. Hye Ri flashes back to when she found out about the one night stand. Serves her right for eavesdropping.
3. Cha Jin Wook recalls Yoo Mi wondering if he did everything because of Dong Goo. (Didn’t we just see this conversation 5 minutes ago? Does that really deserve a flashback?)
4. Jin Wook recollects bath time with his faux-son.
5. Yoo Mi thinks of the time Jin Wook told her how often he missed her in the past 3 years. (I’m running out of verbs to describe a flash back.)
6. Yoo Mi reminisces (Ha! got one more synonym) about her time at Daebok group as she prepares to leave.

When you actually count up the number of flashbacks, it starts sounding like a joke. The episodes aren’t that long to begin with, especially once you subtract the epilogues. I’m curious how much actual new content we got this time, but that would require re-watching it and that’s asking too much.

I didn’t hate this episode. It felt too unreal for that. They could easily pull out the it-was-all-a-bad-dream trope in episode 11, and I’d just go with it. I still like the show for the nine prior episodes of entertainment it delivered. But this better be an aberration. They have two episodes left to fix it. In the meantime, I think I’ll go watch Running Man.